


Into The Black

by amyfortuna



Category: Blue Castle - L. M. Montgomery
Genre: Alternate Universe - Space, F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-19
Updated: 2014-12-19
Packaged: 2018-03-02 03:17:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 626
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2797613
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amyfortuna/pseuds/amyfortuna
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Valancy Stirling has two methods of escape from the desert planet she lives on.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Into The Black

**Author's Note:**

  * For [magdarko](https://archiveofourown.org/users/magdarko/gifts).



“ _She shimmers in the black of space like a green jewel set on a fair lady’s hand. As you sweep in towards Amara’s middle oceans , her white, soft clouds clear away and she stands revealed before you, filling up all your view, commanding your eyes. Her two moons, Erus and Colobyus, dance on the horizon of your viewscreen or dip away to hide behind their beautiful mother. When you finally settle down on the docks of Mistawis, her largest city, Erus hangs directly above you, black against its stark white larger brother, in an eclipse that lasts for days at a time._ ”

Valancy took a deep breath. John Foster, the space explorer who wrote about planets and suns like they were friends and neighbors, and who wrote to the reader as if he were writing to a dear friend, was one of her escapes from her life, trapped on a desert planet that had not quite turned into the paradise promised by the Redfern Terraforming Company. 

The other escape was her dream of the stars. Every star she could see in the night, she constructed planets and moons around them in her mind. In her dream, she had a spaceship of her own, the Blue Castle, and inside it was everything she could ever possibly need for a journey that would take a lifetime - a trip across the universe. 

The Blue Castle had plenty of fuel and stores, a comfortable set of bunks, generous living space, a hyperdrive that was absolutely top of the line, and a series of pilots. When she was twelve, her pilot was blond and dashing, cutting a swathe of broken hearts as he soared from place to place. At fifteen, he was dark, tall, muscular, good with a ray gun, sarcastic of wit. At twenty, he was soulful and sensitive, still dark and handsome, but quiet and precise. And of late, he had red streaks in his hair, a twisted sardonic smile, and a mysterious past. 

Valancy’s eyes glittered as she allowed herself a moment of idleness to dream about him. She did not realise it but the face of her pilot was one Barney Snaith, bad boy of their little desert settlement. He drove his creaky old hovercraft wherever he pleased at excessive speed, made a friend of their local drunken carpenter and his frail daughter, and worst of all in the mind of Valancy’s relatives, never shaved his reddish beard or was seen to comb his hair. 

Valancy liked Barney, even if she hadn’t realised he was her dreamed-of pilot. He did what he wanted and never minded public opinion. Valancy wished she didn’t have to mind public opinion. 

Someday - someday - she’d have that ship, and she’d soar off into the black with her pilot, far away from the dusty desert she had lived in all her life. She would go to Amara, see those moons shining with her own two eyes. 

“ _Amara’s treasures are her oceans,_ ” she continued reading to herself. “ _Green like old Earth emeralds, they sparkle wherever you see them. Let me take your hand and lead you down to the white sand of her shores, where the waves glitter and glisten. The native people of Amara live on and in the water, and are green themselves, absorbing part of the energy they need from their white sun and part from the water itself. The tides of Amara turn up all the treasures one needs in this waterworld, from the rarest of gems and sea creatures to life-giving washes of the water, flying so far up the shore that in particularly flat areas the land can be irrigated by it. The waters here are sweet instead of salty, and no one ever cries, except for joy._ ”


End file.
